In 1996, Kenny Garrett recorded “Pursuance: The Music of John Coltrane,” one of the better tribute albums to the late giant. A decade later, the alto saxophonist has released a new album, “Beyond the Wall,” which may not bannered as having anything to do with Coltrane, but is very much an extension of his ideas, both musical and philosophical.

Mr. Garrett is also performing the music from “Beyond the Wall” this week at Birdland. Where the album features an all-star lineup — featuring the tenor saxist Pharoah Sanders, the vibraphonist Bobby Hutcherson, the pianist Mulgrew Miller, and a variety of studio guests, including Asian instrumentalists and background vocalists — Mr. Garrett uses his working quartet at Birdland, with Benito Gonzalez on piano, Kris Funn on bass, and Jamire Williams on drums. The group works extra hard to make sure that no one feels like anything is missing.

Considering that “Beyond the Wall” costars one famous Coltrane acolyte (Mr. Sanders) and is dedicated to another (the pianist McCoy Tyner), the Coltrane influence is hardly surprising. Coltrane’s most famous musical journeys (other than to realms of the metaphysical) were to “Africa” and “India”; “Beyond the Wall” suggests what Coltrane might have discovered had he lived long enough to visit China.

Describing the album as a contemplation of “the music and spirituality” of the land beyond the Great Wall, Mr. Garrett’s original compositions include both melodies and harmonies suggestive of indigenous Asian music, as well as the minor modes and chromaticisms that American jazzmen have traditionally used in their depictions of the East.

On Wednesday night at Birdland, Mr. Garrett’s rhythm section also suggested the “classic” Coltrane quartet, with angular, modal vamps from the piano and relentless energy from the drums; Mr. Garrett even dropped and then repeated a four-note sequence at one point that reminded many in the audience of “A Love Supreme.”

The first set on Wednesday began with the album opener, “Calling,” which Mr. Garrett rendered as a tourde-force, playing a marathon solo with endless ideas: He began melodically, then built to upper-register shrieks. But instead of using those discordant sounds for a climax, as one would expect, he went on to produce all kinds of surprising noises, including saxophonic gargles, staccato, and stuttering pecks, getting as wide a range of sounds from the alto as any living saxist. In fact, everyone soloed at length on this number, which amounted almost to a set unto itself.

The second piece, “Qing Wen,” was less intense; on the album, the use of background singers conjures both Roland Kirk and Mr. Sanders’s pop-oriented projects. In toto, this is a very satisfying meeting of East and West, parts of which are pure jazz and others so Eastern that one almost expects a snake to jump out of a basket.

Where much of Mr. Garrett’s music is loud and tumultuous, for contrast he played the quiet and contemplative “Tsunami Song”near the end of his set. On the album, it’s rendered by Mr. Garrett on piano with several Asian musicians; at Birdland, he played it no less satisfyingly as a duet between himself on soprano sax and Mr. Gonzales on piano. Mr. Garrett gave his soprano the mono-dynamic, tranquil character of a Chinese wooden flute, which gave this portion of the set the character of folk music; at one point, Mr. Gonzales suggested the “slip-note” style keyboard of Nashville pianist Floyd Cramer.

Mr. Garrett finished with a blues by the full quartet to suggest that we had all collectively traveled back to home turf. If anything, his 90-minute set could be faulted for providing too much; several numbers, including the half-hour opener, seemed a little too long, even considering that Mr. Garrett is one of the few living players who can sustain interest over such a lengthy duration. Nevertheless, his reflection on Eastern culture is music of both undeniable power and subtlety.

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K.T. Sullivan is a headliner of the cabaret and musical theater worlds, and her way of decorating a song leans toward the operatic tradition; Allan Harris works in the jazz field, and his approach to making a song his own is rooted in blues and gospel.I never imagined the two would ever work together, particularly at the Oak Room of the Algonquin — ground zero for cabaret — but darned if they don’t pull it off.

How can cabaret and jazz get together? The first move is choosing the right material: in this case, the songs of Johnny Mercer, who wrote film and stage musicals but also was considered part of the jazz world, and Duke Ellington, the greatest of all jazz composers, who also wrote for Broadway. (Alas, Mercer and Ellington wrote only one song together, the frequently heard “Satin Doll.”)

On opening night, both singers wisely eschewed the extraneous trappings of both the jazz and cabaret traditions and got right to the essence of the songs themselves: Ms. Sullivan maintained a touch of vibrato to imbue her singing with warmth and humanity, and Mr. Harris, as always, continually improvised (in the middle of “Midnight Sun,” he looked for the stardust on his sleeve — a very Tony Bennett-like move) to give his interpretations a first-person directness. Even so, both singers brought the texts alive with little as little frivolity as possible.

No less important is securing the right pianist, which they surely have in the marvelous Eric Reed, who knows well how to make an old song sound new without trashing the qualities we liked about it to begin with. For longtime listeners, it’s a treat to hear Ms. Sullivan sing with more of a beat than ever before, and to hear Mr. Harris get inside a lyric and truly embody a song more than he has previously done.

They also found themselves on the same page thematically, showing that Mercer’s “When the World Was Young” and Ellington’s “Sophisticated Lady” are two sides of the same coin, both depicting a jaded demi-monde reflecting back on her innocent youth. For his part, Mr. Reed closed “Sophisticated Lady” with a few bars of “Rhapsody in Blue,” as a reference to Gershwin’s well-known admiration for the Ellington song.

With Mr. Reed’s support, Mr. Mercer and Ms. Sullivan also made especially beautiful tone poems out of some unusual Ellington verses, particularly those of “I Got It Bad” and “Jump for Joy,” the latter of which interweaved “The Volga Boatman,” apparently to provide more clouds of gray than any Russian play could guarantee.

I still don’t think I would want to hear Ms. Sullivan scat sing “Cherokee” or Mr. Harris tackle “His Name Is Mr. Snow,” but I’m willing to be surprised.

wfriedwald@nysun.com